Just when the patents war against Android seemed to be dying down, with Apple and Microsoft investors getting impatient with long-drawn out and expensive battles, Google has been hit with its biggest direct lawsuit yet. The Rockstar Consortium, which snatched Nortel’s armory of patent from under Google’s nose in a bankruptcy auction in 2011, has fired patent infringement suits at Google and other Android majors, including Samsung and HTC.
This is a big version of an increasingly common trend, for companies to work through consortia or even ‘trolls’, rather than pursuing IPR cases themselves, thus reducing cost and outsourcing much of the work of gathering ammunition against possible infringers. Rockstar is important because of the huge amount of wireless IPR Nortel possessed, and because its key members are Android’s arch-enemies, Apple and Google, as well as Ericsson, Sony and RIM.
Of course, attacking Android, or at least undermining its credibility, was clearly the motive for creating Rockstar in the first place, but this is the first time these companies have targeted Google directly, either individually or as a group. They have usually gone after its partners, such as Samsung, though it did have its own tussle with Oracle, over a different issue (Java copyright), and of course has inherited some court battles with the acquisition, also IPR-centered, of Motorola Mobility.
Rockstar and its subsidiary NetStar Technologies allege that Google has infringed seven of the patents acquired from Nortel, all of them coming under the umbrella label ‘Associative Search Engine’, and all relating to an invention used to deliver advertisements based on users’ search terms ‘ in other words, the heart of Google’s most important business model.
The complaint alleges: “Despite losing in its attempt to acquire the patents-in-suit at auction, Google has infringed and continues to infringe the patents-in-suit.” It demands past and future damages and a trial by jury.
Rockstar and another subsidiary, MobileStar Technologies, have also filed a complaint against Samsung for infringement of seven other patents, including one called ‘Navigation Tool for Graphical User Interface’. That would apply to Samsung devices whose OS is configured “to support Gallery, Email, Maps and Browser functionality. And the Korean firm’s Mobile Hotspot feature is also alleged to infringe a patent entitled ‘Internet Protocol Filter’.
Finally, Rockstar has sued HTC for alleged infringement of the same seven patents cited against Samsung, while Asustek Computer ‘ an important partner in Google’s Nexus device program – is alleged to have infringed six of the patents.
Rockstar paid $4.5bn for Nortel’s 6,000 patents with Apple being the biggest participant, paying up $2.6bn, while BlackBerry (then RIM) paid $770m for its stake, Ericsson paid $340m and the remaining $790m was split among EMC, Microsoft and Sony. According to a report from Wired, Rockstar has spent the past several years with a full time team of 10 reverse engineering products and hunting for infringements.
There has been intense criticism of companies’ willingness to pursue patent claims rather than concentrating on new innovations, and some vendors have been accused of doing this to block rivals ‘ especially when product bans are sought ‘ rather than to protect IPR. Even large suppliers have been behaving like trolls, acquiring patents purely to drum up licensing revenues rather than to use in their own technologies. “Rockstar’s attack on Google highlights two of the most egregious problems with our country’s broken patent regime,” Charles Duan, director of the patent reform project at US consumer rights group Public Knowledge. Rockstar sells no products and shields its owners from countersuits, he complained to GigaOM. “Many of the patents asserted by Rockstar appear to be overly broad and of low quality. It is likely that its attempt to hobble its owners’ competitors in the courtroom will ultimately fail. But it will be expensive to reach that point, and whatever the outcome of the litigation, consumers will bear the cost.’